Cycling service providers are worried. Order books no longer fill up as quickly. Corinne Verdier points out the director of Altinova, a company that mainly manufactures parking arches “a waiting attitude on the part of local authorities since the dissolution” of the National Assembly, at the beginning of June: “Elected officials don’t necessarily tell us why, but it’s stuck”. Amira Haberah, co-founder of Fifteen, which offers bike rental services to cities, notes that, “This year, all tenders are six months late. And since the legislative elections, elected officials don’t really know who to contact.”testify.
Would pro-bicycle policies act as a brake? Elected officials from several cities, meeting at the European Mobility Expo transport fair, which will be held until Thursday, October 3 in Strasbourg, fear the disappearance of state co-financing.
Since 2019, local authorities seeking to develop cycling infrastructure could count, thanks to “bike plans” successive, with the massive and constant support of the State. Every year, the “active mobility funds”endowed with 250 million euros, it allowed hundreds of urban or rural areas to develop pedestrian bridges, safe intersections and parking structures.
“Drastic cuts in the mobility budget”
But the machine got stuck. The last call for projects, launched at the end of 2023 for an amount of €125 million and for which 400 applications had been examined, was unsuccessful. Its winners should have been chosen in July. “We are concerned about the announcement of drastic cuts in the mobility budget”says Françoise Rossignol, vice president (several centers) of the urban community of Arras and president of the Club of Cyclic and Walkable Cities and Territories (CVTCM), which brings together 240 communities.
A freeze of the State’s commitments, a year and a half before the next renewal of municipal councils, would be the worst, explains the elected official of Pas-de-Calais: “If the projects do not start today, they will not be completed before the end of the term. Why don’t we dig up the roads a few months before the municipal elections?.
Last year, the urban community of Arras presented a project for a 3.5 kilometer cycle path that will link two municipalities at a cost of 2.3 million euros. “We ask the State for a contribution of 890,000 euros. We have no more news »laments Françoise Rossignol.
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